


There is Room in my Lap for Bruises (Asses, Handclaps)

by candygramme



Series: The Voyages of the Eye of Ra [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26766772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candygramme/pseuds/candygramme
Summary: This is Episode 1 of "The Voyages of the Eye of Ra," in which Captain Padalecki rescues what will prove to be a new crew member.Think of Jared as a kind of futuristic Captain Beaky, who roams through the cosmos, righting wrongs for the Free Worlds Consortium.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Series: The Voyages of the Eye of Ra [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950976
Comments: 26
Kudos: 40





	There is Room in my Lap for Bruises (Asses, Handclaps)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Keep the Streets Empty for Me" by Fever Ray. I wanted to write something that I could add to as I go along, rather than a huge screed that gets posted all at once. It's a lot less pressure, and I can have fun with it. This first part is PG13, but it will soon develop into rather more than that.
> 
> It's not a WIP. It will, I hope, be a series of short, complete stories with a single theme.
> 
> I am always grateful to my amazing beta, spoonlessone.

This kind of thing seems to be happening to me more and more these days. I’m on hostile ground, and my cloaking device is on the fritz, and that’s a problem. It’s a big problem.

“Misha?” I hiss, and look for somewhere to conceal my presence from the locals. I doubt very much whether flickering in and out of existence is going to go down well if I’m spotted, although I suppose they might think I’m a ghost.

“Ummmm,” says the voice in my head, and if I were back on the ship I swear I would take a crowbar to the useless hunk of junk, because computers just aren’t supposed to say ‘Ummm’.

“What’s wrong with the cloak?” I ask. “It’s dropping me out of the phantom zone every ten seconds or so, and I’m going to be in real trouble if I’m caught now.”

“Ermmm,” is all I get by way of a reply, but there’s a flash, and a buzzing sound, and after a moment or so my cloak seems to stabilize.

“Thanks,” I say. “But would it kill you to use your words? What was wrong? Is it going to happen again? I need to know these things.”

“Uuummm.” I can tell it’s going to be one of those days, and I sigh as I emerge from my hiding place — an alcove in the corridor that was almost big enough to take me.

I’m not exactly your average size, and it’s not always easy to stay under the radar, but, hey! Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Jared — or more correctly Captain J.T. Padalecki, Hostage Negotiator and Senior Envoy of the Free Worlds Consortium. Basically, what I do is free slaves wherever and however I can and return them to their homes.

It sounds pretty grand, being a captain, but I tend not to dwell on it. I don’t have a crew, other than my ship’s computer, the Modular Intelligence for Shipboard Holistic Analysis, or M.I.S.H.A. It can occasionally be an interesting companion, but mostly it malfunctions, like today, with its stutter. The reason I’m currently in subspace, or the phantom zone as I like to call it, is that I’m not actually supposed to be here as you might have gathered from my hiding in alcoves and so forth.

The planet Kallix is populated by a race of barbaric, militaristic humanoids, and according to intel that Misha has provided, they not only enslave any captive that comes their way, they execute their captives in really inventive and utterly disgusting ways, which brings me to why I’m here, sneaking through underground passages and hoping that the tech to keep me in the phantom zone doesn’t go down before I can effect my rescue.

One of the executions I mentioned is planned for today, and I don’t have a whole lot of time to drum up a rescue strategy. 

I can hear people filing into the arena above, and it puts me in mind of those ceremonial glow-football games back home that kick off the school year in style as contestants compete for credits. There’s a squelching, moaning sound from a door right beside me, and as I peek through the glass I wish I hadn’t. The creature in the cage behind the door appears to be a pasty, greenish specimen with multiple tentacles and an overbite. It’s not happy, and I can’t blame it. I wouldn’t be either, if I looked like that!

“Ummm, you are in danger of entering the arena yourself, if you go through that purple door,” Misha tells me, and I make a note to avoid doing so if I possibly can. I’m about to backtrack, when I hear it.

I say, ‘hear’, but it isn’t really a sound. It’s in my head, and it’s a cry for help such as I never heard before. Whoever it is doing the calling isn’t just the most powerful telepath I ever came across, they are in dire straits.

 _“Where are you?”_ I think, and I bite my nails, hoping that whoever it is hears me.

A series of visuals flood my mind, each one more distressing than the last, but I gather that the person sending them is being tortured by two individuals. Only two adversaries seems like acceptable odds to me, so if I can find the poor bastard before they do anything to him with that red hot brazier I can see in the vision he’s sending me, it will be a score for the good guys.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to orient into the direction from which that anguished plea is coming, and I decide that the best thing to do is use the Phantom Zone to morph through the wall and into the room before I actually show myself.

“Misha,” I say. “Increase the strength of the matter phaser.”

“That could be dangerous. You know that people have been lost in subspace,” he says.

“Just do it. NOW!” I use VOICE, and hope that a mere machine will obey me the way that my colleagues do.

“Uuummmm,” he replies, but the hum changes pitch, and I assume he’s complied. So I walk through the wall and into a scene from the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell. The two Kallions are busy with a pair of metal rods that are currently heating up in the brazier, so I look around for the source of the primal scream I can still hear in my head.

The captive is Minkotan, I can tell at a glance. The telltale crest of fur that runs from the nape of his neck down over his shoulders and along his spine makes that obvious. It’s reddish brown under the spotlight and sadly drooping at the moment. He’s tied, spread-eagled to a metal X that exposes every inch of his frankly sensational body. It’s obvious that he’s been abused, and red weals cover the creamy skin and delicate freckles of his back. As I step up within touching distance, I can tell that I’m out of time. Both his tormentors have pulled what appear to be metal stakes from the fire and are turning towards him. I utter a prayer to Nut, the Mother of All, that my matter phaser holds out and throw my arms around his middle, hug him tight against me and pull him backwards. The phase shift takes effect, and he joins me in the phantom zone. I wish I could spare a second to wave to the cameras I see that are recording the whole hellish session, but with my matter phaser about to conk out, escape is far more important.

The thugs who were about to do unspeakable things to his body are suddenly faced with the fact that their captive has vanished and stop short, scratching their heads as I haul my burden backwards and through the wall.

“A little help would be good, Misha,” I yell as the damned cloaking device goes on the fritz again, buzzing and spluttering and finally giving up the ghost with a weird, whining screech.

“Ermmmm.” It seems that I am plagued with malfunctioning machinery today of all days, but I have my rescue, if I can hang onto him and not become his partner in captivity. I release him from my desperate clutch and grab his hand as Misha finally finds his words. “Get back to the entrance. I can lift you from there,” he tells me.

Good enough. It’s a plan, albeit a really sketchy one. I turn to the ex-captive to tell him to run, and for a moment I am hypnotized. My jaw drops as I take in the absolute beauty of the creature I’ve rescued. His eyes are green, and reddened around the outside. There are tears, and I want to put my arms around him and tell him he’s safe now, but he isn’t, yet. 

“Run!” I say, and we do. He’s not projecting panic any more, but he’s in pain, I can tell, and the sooner I can get him back to the ship and the medilab, the sooner I’ll be happy.

I’ll say this for the bundle of nuts and bolts that passes for a ship’s computer, no sooner have we barreled through the doors into the gardens beside the arena, than Misha has us locked in, and I feel the sickening sensation of being broken down into atoms and reassembled back in the holding dock of my ship. 

“Get us out of here as fast as you can,” I tell Misha, and while he doesn’t actually say anything, I hear the engines kick in, and the sudden vibration tell me that he’s actually done what I asked. I’m about to invite the newcomer to accompany me to the medilab, when all of a sudden he gives a strange, plaintive little cry and collapses onto the deck.

So I’m back on the ship, and that’s a plus. The minuses are that I didn’t have time to set in a course. I have a mentally defective computer with a stutter, I’ve got an injured alien passed out on my deck, and I have no idea what’s wrong with him, or whether the medilab is familiar with his physiology. The day is not going well.

Crouching, I lift the aforementioned alien in my arms and stagger off to the medilab. Let me tell you, he’s no lightweight, and I am breathing heavily by the time I get him into the pod and push the button to have it do a full workup. Meanwhile, I ask Misha for any information on Minkotan physiology he can find. Then I hold my breath and hope that I didn’t just somehow kill the poor sucker.

Once he’s in the pod, I’ve done all I can do for him until after the medilab has completed its analysis, so I set it to send me the info on what’s wrong and run back to the ops deck to work out where we are and set in some kind of course.

The closest Freeport is Consuelo, and so we head there. I love Consuelo. It’s got a canteen that serves the best breakfast in the galaxy, and I’ve gotta tell you, Mark — the owner — brews his own beer, which is amazing stuff. So anyway, I put in a call to Mark and ask him about any Minkotans that have been in the area. Let’s face it, Minkota is on the other side of the Galaxy. It’s highly unlikely that there have been any just passing through, but you never know.

I’m waiting a reply to my call, when the medilab pings me to let me know that healing will be complete for my mystery passenger within five minutes. I ask Misha to put Mark’s call through to the medilab when it comes through, and make my way out to the pod that I hope is getting my Minkotan passenger refurbished before he can ‘um’ at me.

As I reach the pod, the hatch on the side of it rolls back to reveal my guest. I stop breathing for a moment, because, by Hathor’s milky breasts, I have never seen such a beautiful creature in my entire life.

Sure, he’s alien. Sure, he’s different from me, but I swear on Ma’at’s feather that he’s human — probably more human than I am.

It’s painfully obvious that he catches my thought, as if the fact that I am standing there, bug eyed, with my jaw dropped onto my chest hadn’t given the game away, because he steps forward and drops to one knee, his fisted hand across his chest to strike his shoulder gently in some kind of salute.

_You saved me, and I am yours now to command. I thank you._

The thought is clear as crystal, and I wonder what language he speaks, if he speaks at all. I try to think whether Minkotan is covered by the universal translator. I’m sure his voice is as beautiful as the rest of him. Why didn’t I pay attention when I was in translator configuration class? 

Meanwhile I have this gorgeous creature kneeling before me, and I don’t know what the correct response to make is. I blink at him owlishly and say the very first thing that comes into my head, which happens to be, “Are you hungry?”

 _If it please you, I would welcome food._ I nod and beckon him to follow me. For a moment he remains kneeling, and it’s as if there’s some response I should give that I haven’t. I’m pondering what that could be when he smiles. Actually it’s more of a smirk than a smile, and I instantly realize that I’ve been had. 

“You’re supposed to put your hand on my head and tell me you accept my service,” he tells me, and his voice is just as attractive as the rest of him.

“You’re messing with me!” I say, and his smile broadens. “Oh, very well! I accept your service,” I say, sliding my fingers through his hair. “Now come along!”

He laughs at that and gets to his feet, and we make our way towards the flight deck. We’re just inside the door when my call from Mark comes through, and I go into commtrance.

Mark doesn’t really pay lip service to the niceties, and his first words to me are, “A Minkotan?”

“Yeah. What can you tell me about Minkotans?”

“They fetch a very attractive price for their services,” says Mark. “Highly prized courtesans. Way outside the price range of you and me, my man. There was one a couple of ten-days ago for delivery to the emperor of Rigel IV, but he was waylaid somewhere in Kall-space. I believe there’s a reward for his rescue.”

Hmmm... so I’ve rescued another slave and didn’t even know it? I wind up the conversation by telling Mark we’re going to arrive on Consuelo within the next day, Mother Isis permitting, and sign off in time to hear Misha flirting, actually flirting with my Minkotan.

“I will make you the finest omelet you have ever eaten.” It says, and for some reason the beautiful Minkotan face turns grey and he shudders.

“No... I thank you, but not an omelet.”

“Would you, errrrm... would you prefer your eggs boiled with toast?” says Misha, and I see my gorgeous alien shudder. So I swiftly gather that breakfast should be something unrelated to egg, and I order up a rice dish that will hopefully not trigger any of his revulsion.

He beams at me and accepts it with thanks, and I deem it time for introductions. 

“My name is Jared,” I tell him. “And you’re on my ship, the _Eye of Ra_. Welcome.”

He gazes up at me with his incredibly green eyes and smiles. “I’m Jensen,” he says, then goes back to his rice.

Nothing further is said about food, and pretty soon the _Eye of Ra_ is locked into orbit around Consuelo awaiting permission to dock.

It’s at this point that I decide that Jensen and I must have a talk.

“So, Jensen, you were heading to Rigel IV, I understand.” It’s best not to beat about the bush. He looks at me with suddenly frightened eyes.

“I was,” he admits. “But now I’ve been compromised they will no longer require my services.”

I frown, and Misha interjects, “Boss will require them. I can tell from his voice.”

“Shut up!” I tell him. “So where do you wish to go?”

“I offered you my service, and you accepted.” It sounds like a protest, and I ponder for a few moments.

“Are you saying you want to be a part of my crew?”

“You have accepted me.” Jensen is smirking again. “I am yours.”

There’s a lesson in there for me somewhere. I suspect that the punchline is going to be to mind my own business. Still, a little company that doesn’t suffer from extreme dysfluency might be nice.

“Well, okay,“ I say. “I guess we’re going to have to get you dressed, or the folk on Consuelo are going to notice exactly what it is that I find endearing about you.” I skip smartly out of his way as he aims a mean elbow at my kidney and tell Misha to fit him out with something suitable. Before too long the replicator burbles and then spits out a serviceable jumpsuit. I am saddened when Jensen puts it on, but if he’s on my crew I can’t have him going out in the nude. It would give Mark totally the wrong impression of my shipboard activities.

Together we head onto the station itself, leaving Misha to ensure security for the _Eye of Ra_. There’s only one other vessel in the dock at present, and I wince a little as I notice that it’s a Kallion ship; the markings on the nose flag it as a vessel bearing one of their senators, and I eye Jensen, who is chuckling.

“Is this OK? Do you need to stay on board the _Eye_?” I ask him, but he shakes his head, still smiling.

“No,” he says. “It couldn’t be better. I will hopefully be able to give him his own again.” He pauses, a gleam of unholy mischief in his eyes. “Will we be remaining here overnight?”

“Sure, if you want to.” I tell him. “We don’t have any fixed schedule at present.”

“I would count it a blessing.” He gives me a little bow. “If all goes well, I shall return something that is his to him. It will be perfect.”

I frown a little at that, because it was only a few parsecs ago that I was an unwelcome visitor on Kallix myself, snatching their beautiful, doomed prisoner away from under their very noses. I’d really rather that they not find out that it was me.

He lays a hand on my arm and reassures me with his sincerest smile that all will be well, and I don’t feel even slightly comforted by that as we stroll into the bar and look for Signore Mark Pellegrino.

He’s behind the bar as usual at this time in the sleep cycle, and waves us over as soon as we walk in. I’m not surprised. The Kallions don’t seem like a particularly talkative group, and Mark loves to chat. We wander over and order a couple of pints of his home brew. It’s not for lightweights, Mark’s beer. He calls it ‘Lunatic Soup’, and there are times when I think he’s right. Still, we want to get any gossip that he might have heard, so we join him, and I order dinner. The blue plate special is chicken fried ryhorn steak, and I go with that. After a few minutes considering the menu, so does Jensen. Then we settle down to pick Mark’s brains.

The Kallians are remaining on their ship for the night, and so we get the fanciest room in the place. Mark calls it the bridal suite and winks at me. I’m actually astonished that he hasn’t mentioned my Minkotan companion, but it’s fairly obvious that he’s guessed just who Jensen is, because he keeps on sending sideways glances to the Kallian contingent, who are far too busy playing some odd game with a deck of cards to notice. I can’t quite work out the rules, although it does seem that with each round, the apparent loser has to bend over so the others can spank his ass!

Mark drops his voice and starts to tell us what they are doing on Consuelo. “Mark was on duty when they arrived, and you know how good he is at listening. Seems that the senator’s ship intercepted a tribute vessel en route to Rigel IV and the Emperor. The Praetor accepted the tribute instead, but before he could get full use out of it, it was taken away by magic. I suspect the Emperor isn’t going to be too pleased with that.” He rolls his eyes at the word magic, and waits for our response.

“Magic?” Jensen gave a little laugh. “Sounds a little unlikely.”

“They’re barbarians, my friend.” Mark grinned. “Anyway, the Praetor thinks that the senator stole his booty, and he’s instructed to leave and not return without it. Looks like he’s going to be in exile for the duration, and I hear there’s an Imperial fleet on its way to Kallix. More beer?”

Jensen smiles but declines, saying that he has only recently risen from his sick bed, and would be grateful to find his room for the night. I must say, he’s a courteous fellow. Taking the force generator key, Mark conducts us out around the back of the bar to the corridor where his guest suites await. Truly, the suite he’s given us is a beauty. Half of the walls are made of plexiglass, and from the bed one can see the whole of the Milky Way arched over the it like a canopy. I whistle.

“There you go,” says Mark, with a gesture that embraces the view and the other amenities. “ Once you click the key, it will activate the force shield. Have a good night, my friends.” With that, he takes his leave and goes back to his bar.

I look at Jensen, who suddenly appears to be far less relaxed that I’ve seen him until now. “You OK?” I ask him. 

“Peachy,” he says. “I just... I need the ‘fresher.” All of a sudden he’s pale, his face grey again. I show him where the ‘fresher is, and he almost runs to it with a strange, waddling gait. I turn to go help him if he needs it, but he gestures me away and closes the door on me, leaving me to fret as I wonder what happened.

Time passes. The 'fresher door remains stubbornly closed, leaving me to worry just what’s happening to my new crew member. By the time the door re-opens I’ve fallen into a doze, unpleasant images crowding my thoughts. As Jensen emerges at last, he looks a good deal better, although he appears to have some kind of bloating around his belly.

“I need some blankets,” he announces. “Where are they kept?” 

“Blankets?” I sound a bit like an Arcturan lizard, the way I parrot what he’s said, but I’m a little surprised to say the least. Getting up I call forth the storage module from the wall and unearth a couple of blankets and a snazzy down quilt. He leans over them for a moment and then snatches up the quilt.

“Okay. Don’t look,” he tells me, at which point I’ve had enough.

“Come on, Jensen. What in the name of Taweret is going on? You’re making me nervous.” I’m speaking sharply, and he looks at me with eyes that are wide and frightened. “I don’t want to scare you, but all this mystery is distressing to me, and besides, maybe I can help in some way.”

He sighs and sits down on the bed looking dejected.

Finally, he spreads the quilt out beside him on the bed, stands up, and pulls open a flap on his abdomen. “I guess I couldn’t keep my shame hidden from you,” he murmurs as he reaches inside himself to draw out what appears to be an egg.

Quite frankly I boggle. Ordinarily I keep my cussing to the gentle goddesses, but this is an extraordinary circumstance. “By Osiris’s severed penis,” I exclaim. “That looks like an egg. Jensen, did you lay an egg?”

His head hangs even lower, if that were possible, and his head and neck turn deeply red with embarrassment, and I ‘hear’ the misery he’s experiencing. “I told you I’d been compromised and can never go home to Minkota. This is the shame I must bear for the rest of my life.” He’s wrapping the egg up in the quilt as he speaks, and ensuring that it’s cocooned in several layers.

“I was to be a companion to the heir to the throne on Rigel IV, but the senator you saw out in the bar took me prisoner, took me against my will and stole my value from me.” There are tears standing in his beautiful eyes. “I was seen to have no value to the Kallians anymore, and therefore I was to be executed when you found me.”

“Jensen, you have great value. Maybe not as a companion to a prince, but as company other than that bag of nuts and bolts I call a computer.” I put a hand on his arm, and he flinches. “Besides, there is your... ummm... child to protect.” Sekhmet save me, I am beginning to sound like Misha.

He gives me a watery smile. “Yes, and it will very soon bond with that senator. In another day it will seek its parent, and I will be gone, but the senator...” He smiles, and it’s not a nice smile at all. “The senator will be drawn in by the compulsion to love it and care for it.”

“You mean it’s telepathic while it’s in the egg?” This is such a neat solution to Jensen’s problems that the only problem I foresee is getting the egg onto the Kallian vessel. I suddenly have a solution for that. 

“Wait here,” I say, and then unseal the door and go in search of Mark.

Mark is happy again. A cruiser full of vacationing Nifflings has just docked and the joint is jumping when I reach the bar.

“Hey, Mark?” He turns back to me and grins. “Could I have a quiet word?”

Nodding, he swiftly engages the sound damper field that ordinarily serves to eliminate any discussion of contraband he might want kept secret. “Problems?” he asks, pouring a generous shot of Strontian Gin and dropping in a froglet for good measure.

“Are you going to be provisioning the Kallian ship any time soon?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, beaming. “They want me to do it in the next four hours. They’re aiming to leave at eight bells.” I rack my brains, but Jensen’s gentle thought comes through to me. 

_That’s noon in real time._ I guess that sound dampers don’t affect telepathy.

“Could I get you to include a gift from Jensen with the supplies?” Mark studies me carefully and with rather a large amount of suspicion. I always prefer Mark when he’s in his other aspect, because he isn’t so suspicious. “I promise you it won’t explode, but there’s a critical time before which it must be on board the vessel.”

“Okay, Padalecki. Out with it? What are you setting me up for?”

I take my time answering, fishing the froglet out of my drink and sucking it clean before it giggles and hops back behind the bar. Damn! The sweat they secrete is delicious. I swiftly explain what’s happened to Jensen, and Mark is aghast. 

“Anubis protect me from Ammut! You will need to care for your Minkotan in the days and weeks to come. I have never heard of one that survived such a terrible fate.” Mark shook his head. “I’ll wear white for him. He seems like a sweet young man. I hope I meet him.”

You mean he’ll try to kill himself?” I’m horrified at the very idea of losing him. “But he offered me his service, and I accepted.”

“I only hope that’s enough,” says Mark with such a somber tone that I feel Ammut herself walk across my grave. “Of course I’ll deliver it for you. My only hope is that the child sets its bond before they eat it.” At that moment, Jensen appears holding his quilt wrapped bundle. Handing it over to Mark, he touches his own forehead and then Mark’s. “You’re welcome,” says Mark, his eyes soft as he looks at Jensen, and takes the egg. “I’ll go and put the order together right now.”

He bustles off, and Jensen and I return to our room. Jensen turns to smile at me, performing the same forehead thing he did to Mark, and I’m guessing that means thank you.

“Now listen to me,” I say to him. “Thanks are all very well, but you will not try and commit suicide while you are in my service. You understand?”

“Is that an order?” he asks, and I nod, then decide that it should be a verbal order. “Yep. That’s an order. You may be compromised to others out there, but you are precious to me.” As I speak, I realize that it’s true and that in the very short time I’ve known him, I’ve lost my heart to him. Still, he is way out of my league, and there’s no use yearning for what can never be.

His eyes tear up again, and he puts his arms around my neck and presses a kiss to my very surprised mouth. “I will try to be of service,” he whispers.

“Excellent!” if my voice sounds a little shaky it’s because this absolute vision of beauty just laid one on me. Whatever next? By all the gods, I’m up for it, whatever it is.

I look at him and smile somewhat feebly. “Get some rest,” I tell him. I almost wish I could be present when the senator finds his present, but I’m tired too, and tomorrow I’m going to have to repair the Anubis cursed phase shifter. 

This is going to be an interesting voyage. 

TBC


End file.
